lines dividing strangers from your friends
by tonberrys-and-kuchikopi
Summary: Miscellaneous snippets for Sirius in the Renascentia-verse. Chapters are self-contained and won't always be posted in order, but will each have a date to mark time-frame.
1. First day at Hogwarts

**September 1st 1971**

" _SIRIUS_!"

That had to be the fourth time he'd heard his name being called from downstairs, and it was definitely the tone that meant something not good was going to happen if he didn't show up. He'd been packing and unpacking for days, trying to make sure he had everything and the result had been a mad dash to try and make sure he had everything. It was getting kind of late, though. He really needed to hurry up.

Apparently his parents had a similar idea, because his trunk and the new owl disappeared in front of him. No doubt he'd find them downstairs when he got there. He took one last look at his room, ignored the flutter in his stomach that he wouldn't see it again until December and bolted down the stairs at full speed.

His mother caught sight of him and exclaimed, "It's almost half past ten!"

He really didn't understand the adult obsession with what time it was. It was all he ever heard, what the time was, when was something or other going to happen, they're going to be late, they can't arrive too early. Secretly, he thought if adults spent less time worrying about the time and doing the stuff, they wouldn't always be in such a rush. Besides, It wasn't as if they were the ones that needed to catch the train. It wasn't their first day as a Hogwarts student. It was his and he wasn't going to be rushed.

In a whoosh, they were there: Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

Despite having had multiple cousins leave for Hogwarts over the last few years, Sirius had never been to the Platform itself. It was crowded, a lot of people in various robes and other strange looking clothes with luggage being taken onto the train. The train was a lot bigger than he'd thought it'd be. Everything was a lot bigger. He knew there'd be other people he'd know once he actually got there, but many of them - Malfoy, Lestrange, Mulciber, Wilkes. Terribly boring lot. Evan was mostly not terrible, which meant he was alright but he was just starting too. He didn't really know anyone there.

Suddenly, he wished he'd been born a couple of months earlier so he'd have been able to go with Andromeda last year. Her younger sister was there, with their mother. He didn't see his uncle though. He supposed when you were down to one kid doing their NEWT's then you didn't need to come every time.

"Do you have everything?" Walburga's voice cut through his thoughts, even as she seemed to be scowling at half the platform.

Sirius nodded distractedly.

"Sirius, look at people when they talk to you. I don't understand why manners is such a difficult concept for you to grasp."

"I have everything," He said, sparing her a quick look. Technically, that was looking at her, right?

" _Sirius-_ " She started, then just sighed heavily. "Stay where Narcissa can see you. Listen to your prefects till you know how to get around. Don't embarrass me or your father."

"I'm not trying to embarass you," Sirius muttered, crossing his arms in a manner that threatened a sulk despite the excitement of the day.

"You appear to have a natural talent for it," His mother said, but it was mild. She didn't sound that annoyed. It was probably okay, or maybe she was thinking the house might be quiet for a few months with only Regulus there. He didn't tend to cause half as much havoc on his own, but he was still young. He had time to learn. "Go say your goodbyes so you're ready to go when your cousin is."

Sirius really didn't want to sit with Narcissa. She was the most boring of the girls; she was so prissy. All of her friends were prissy. The idea of being stuck in a compartment with them the whole way there was terrible, but at least when he got there, he'd be able to get away from her for a while. It was all worth it when he got there at the end of it. Hogwarts had been all he'd thought of for months and now, the time had come.

His father interrupted his thoughts by tapped lightly on the owl's cage. "Are you planning on taking—" He started, before stopping with a pained expression. "You're not going to name the poor creature that, you were being difficult."

Sirius smiled, wide and bright. He was absolutely going to call his new screech owl Sir Hootsalot. He was very loud, very territorial and liked taking dives off his perch. Sounded very much like a knight to him. "He won't answer to anything else now," Sirius said, proudly.

Never one for extraneous speech, Sirius was surprised when his father lingered for a moment to look at the train. It was a strange thought, actually. The idea that there was once a time that his parents were waiting to get on the train. It would have been a long time ago. His parents had children late in comparison to everyone else. His mother had been over _thirty_ even when they'd gotten married. He wondered in a vague sort of way if maybe he would feel like that when he was old too, maybe seeing his own kids off to school for the first time. He made a disgusted face. He really didn't want to think about that.

"Go say goodbye to your brother," He said, suddenly. "You should get on the train."

"Narcissa's still talking," Sirius said, pointing with his head towards her.

"Then you'd be on the train before her."

Sirius gave a slightly startled look. He couldn't possibly be suggesting— but he was! Saying things without actually saying them was his father's specialty. That was as close to permission as he was ever going to get to ditch her and find someone more interesting to sit with. He just had to be quick about it.

"Hey!" Sirius said, coming to a skid in the few paces it took to find his brother. That was another strange idea. He doesn't really remember a time when, despite ample room, he and his brother weren't in each others pockets. He had some hazy memories of him as a baby, but mostly, as far as his memory was concerned, it would be the first time they'd been properly apart and not just visiting relatives. "I'm going now. I'll write in the morning, okay?"

The younger boy's eyes lit up, trained on his brother as he spoke up for the first time since leaving the house. Though Regulus's voice was quiet, there was a near-reverent excitement creeping into his tone - earnest and curious and just slightly envious. "You have to tell me everything. What the best class is, and what the first spell you learn is, and what it's like to sleep in a real dungeon. Don't forget."

"I know spells!" Sirius said, which was sort of true. He'd observed enough spellwork over the years and he even nicked a wand a couple of times to try it out, though the backfires had gotten him into trouble. Still, a spell was a spell. He spared another look at Narcissa, gloating about something and still not looking ready to get on. He had a little time. "I'm going exploring, first chance that I get." Sirius added, as a way to salve his indignant outburst. "You'll see, it'll be like you were there."

"Do you think you'll see the giant squid? Do you think anyone has ever fallen off of the staircases? Cissa said they moved." Biting his lip, Reg sucked in a breath, then out again. Readjusting his posture a little, he added more slowly, but no less earnest, "I wish I could go with you."

"Next year. I'll show you everything, I promise." Sirius replied, deciding he definitely didn't have time to answer all of this. Besides, until then, his brother could read about it both in his letters and in _Hogwarts, A History_. Seeing Narcissa move from the corner of his eye, he gave a shake and smile. "I have to go!"

He bolted without waiting for a response.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

For a moment, Sirius was sure there'd been some kind of mistake; Black's always went to Slytherin, this was how it was and ever would be. He hadn't truly thought he'd break the tradition. He didn't really think it could be broken that easily. But even if he stayed still for a moment, he realised he'd done it: he was going not just to any house but _Gryffindor_. He didn't know anyone in Gryffindor, he realised with a start.

But there was no time to think about it. He had to go sit down. He didn't look at the Slytherin table, he didn't want to see anyone react when he didn't know how he felt about it yet. He was still at Hogwarts, that was the important thing. It didn't matter. _It didn't matter_.

(His parents were going to _kill him_ )

He was joined by James Potter, the boy from the train who'd been sure he'd be a Gryffindor. From the look on his face, he was happy to be proven right. Then two more boys, one thin and quiet and the other stout and a little twitchy. The prefect, someone whose name he didn't recognise (a strange feat in itself), came and showed them up to the tower. It turned out the common room was behind a portrait of a loud, fat lady who you had to give the password to. He felt a sudden thrill of the unknown; no one in his family, no one in his friends or people he knew well enough to ask had experienced this. He was the first of his group. The first person who'd ever seen the red and gold curtains, the common room, any of it.

He quite liked the idea.

The first thing Sirius noticed was that there weren't that many names he did recognise

Both he and his brother had been taught their family tree knee names as soon as they could write, so he knew every name on it a thousand times over. He knew of the Prewetts, in this case two boys in their seventh year. They were Aunt Lucretia's nephews through her husband, he was pretty sure. Podmore also sounded familiar, though he couldn't say exactly why. However, with the exception of James Potter, there was no one around his own age he could definitely say he knew their family. This had never happened before.

There were also muggles in Hogwarts. He'd known about it, heard all of the complaints, the rants, the insults but it was jarring to realise there were several in your house. There were two in his year alone.

( _There was meant to be three, but he wouldn't find out what happened to the fifth dorm mate for a while yet_.)

He'd sort of forgotten about the whole thing until the four of them were holed up in the dorms that night and James was bemoaning the fact he wasn't allowed to play Quidditch yet. Sirius would have liked to try, sure but James taking it badly and had been ranting for a while. One of the boys, Pettigrew, was still listening but he and the other (Lupin) had taken to looking over their class schedules. Astronomy wouldn't be a problem, he'd been learning that anyway. He didn't know a lot of transfiguration, he hadn't had much use for it. Charms were okay, they were great for pranks. Herbology was for old people. History of Magic was for people who didn't have their parents give their entire lineage history from birth. He hadn't really brewed a potion before, so that could be a problem. He didn't want to be left behind. He was pretty sure his father and Grandfather would never speak to him again if failed something.

"We have flying lessons?" Sirius asked, interrupting James mid-rant.

"Yeah, that's probably why first years can't play Quidditch," James said, clearly not wanting to stray from the subject much.

"Why do we have flying lessons? We're eleven, that's practically grown up."

James shrugged, "Must be for the people who don't know how to ride."

Sirius scoffed. "Who doesn't know how to ride a broom?" Regulus was tiny and he could ride reasonably well.

(He might have been a little better than Sirius but he would never tell him that)

"I've only done it a couple of times," Lupin said, quietly.

"Me too," Pettigrew added.

"Some people can't cause they live in the cities or where you can't fly." James replied, as if it was obvious. But that didn't make sense, Sirius lived in London and he'd flown plenty of times.

"I doubt any of the muggle-borns have had a chance," Lupin added, in what Sirius was beginning to suspect was his normal volume.

The reality of it hit him: he was about to learn things with a whole bunch of people who didn't know anything about magic. How dumbed down was this going to be? How bored was he going to be? He was wondering if maybe everyone had a point about mudbloods needing their own school if they didn't know anything. He didn't want to know the baby stuff. He wanted to learn about real magic.

Lupin must have read something in his expression. "Think of it as a chance to show off if you're that good."

Well, that sounded like a challenge. Never let it be said that Sirius Black backed away from a challenge.

He was the first Black in Gryffindor, after all.


	2. First sleepover

**22nd December 1971**

Saturday night in Number 12, Grimmauld Place during the Christmas holidays was always a flurry of activity.

Everyone and their mother had parties at this time of year. There was New Years, Christmas, Solstice, it was a never ending period of social engagements and the family ones aside, ones they were not obligated to attend. But this year was different. This year, Sirius had apparently caused a considerable snickering at their expense over his sorting (as if he could help what was in his head) and it seemed this alone meant that they wanted everything on show so everyone could see everything was _just fine_ , thank you very much and put an end to the rumour mill. They were even hosting one of the parties themselves on the 22nd, the Solstice party and Sirius had a Plan for this one.

One of the major downfalls in having been sorted into Gryffindor had been the animosity between himself and the others his own age that tended to attend these things. Especially since they'd been nasty about it. Or he thought they'd been nasty, they'd looked and talked about him rather than to him and that was nasty, wasn't it? He'd barely spoken to Evan since the sorting and if that was how he wanted it, fine. He didn't need them. But even with Regulus being dragged along to socialising with real life people for his supposedly precocious nature, it was harder to socialise with people you'd probably have hexed a week ago.

Hence: the Plan.

He couldn't really ask about Peter or Remus; neither family ran in the same circles and while half-blood's were tolerated, they weren't encouraged in functions without good reason.

But he _could_ ask about James.

He'd probably told Regulus so much about him at this point that he'd probably even be quite excited to see him in person. James had been the first real friend he'd made at Hogwarts, seemingly able to understand what he meant immediately most of the time and happy to go along with it. The idea of not seeing him had been surprisingly awful. It would be a huge boost to get him to come to a sleepover.

However, he Potters could also be a bit tricky. When asked about his dorm mates, the family had been described as a little hit and miss. His mother's aunt Dorea had married Charlus, and there had been a little bit of confusion over whether this was their son until they remembered theirs had graduated a year or so before. The problem with family tree's was trying to keep them all the branches in mind. But they also weren't considered part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight! But they were pure-blood, because no one in their family would ever have married someone who wasn't pure and if they had, they were blown off the tree so for a chance to have him come over and make this whole thing more bearable, he had to try it.

To his utter joy, it seemed to work.

Both parents ( _Both_!) were extremely busy and would be on the night. Under the caveat of making sure he thanked the right people for coming, did not in anyway mention any undesirable family members or scandal and fielded questions appropriately, then an invite could be extended for the night. Apparently "fielding appropriately" meant parroting back pre-designed responses he'd be expected to learn ahead of time but he could handle it for _one_ night.

He sent the proper and grown up letter to James' parents asking if he would like to come to the party and stay the night, that it was going to be a very fine occasion and he could floo home the next day. His father had even let him seal it properly with one of the crest stamps and he signed it with Signature #3 (he hadn't decided which signature he would keep using yet). He also sent a private one to James though, explaining it might be a bit pants but the food would be good and they'd have the rest of the night and the next day to do things if he came. He didn't bother with anything for that. James wasn't an adult, he didn't need all the fancy stuff.

Just like that James' parents had dropped him off on the night. He knew their parents must have discussed it, but no one told him anything so he was simply pleased that his gambit had worked. Or rather, it seemed like it had.

It had started both wonderfully and terribly, with him cracking up at him having to dress up. He hadn't really expected anything less. He'd also announced that the house looked a bit like a museum, and told him all about a museum of bones he'd gone to when he was little and about ones of all these weird inventions. He'd balked a bit at the blood canters, even if he'd tried to play it off with a joke that he always thought Sirius looked a bit vampiric and was there something he hadn't told him.

Everything seemed to go down from there.

Regulus had been positively frosty towards James and James had promptly mocked the demeanor, but his little brother didn't seem to understand the joke and didn't seem to want to hang out with them. James had tried to correct someone for using mud- _the m word_ and gotten laughed at, which had annoyed him and had apparently come under the undesirable banner that had been forbidden under his parents guidelines. The whole thing had been tense and unpleasant and awkward.

He could tell James was miserable about an hour in and excused them both early, much to his parents annoyance and probably a little to their relief. Whatever happened, he could deal with them later.

"Why do you have Slytherin hangings in here?" James asked, sitting on the bed. He was meant to be going back down to one of the spare rooms, but apparently part of the fun of a sleepover is forts so it has to be in one room. James had been fidgeting all night, so maybe the company would help.

"They did it before I left," Sirius replied. He hadn't really thought about it. The whole house was done up in Slytherin colours. Blacks were Slytherins. He was just what his mother had called a mistake, his father an aberration and what he was calling independent. Regulus hadn't called it anything at all, he just looked a bit sick when people brought it up.

"They were that sure you would be Slytherin?" James scrunched up his face.

"Blacks go in Slytherin," Sirius said, trying not to sound as defensive about it as he felt. His Grandfather had already said he thought there was something wrong with the hat, and his Grandmother had tried to assure him that there was nothing wrong with him because of a hat going bonkers for a minute and talked about rising above it. He was sure after tonight, there'd be another lecture of some sorts.

"You're a Gryffindor," James said, "Knew it the second I met you."

"Before or after Snivellus was being a prat?" Sirius asked.

"During, I can multitask." James grinned. "Come on, let's give the place a makeover."

By morning, the room might have looked the same in every other respect except one: everything was red, gold and covered in lions where there had once been serpents.


	3. After Regulus' sorting

**December 21st 1972**

Sirius glowered.

The party was crowded, but for good reasons this time. Apparently Regulus being sorted into Slytherin had set the world to rights and things were back to celebrating and birds were singing and all that other claptrap. People who were often simply names on the old, faded tapestry in the drawing room came to life under gas lamps, gross grown up food and free flowing alcohol. Groups formed from the stuffy, to the loners, to the dolts, the gossips and others sitting around the side mostly watching proceedings with beady eyes.

"You're sulking," Regulus had informed him, with his legendary skills of observation that landed him in the _right_ house.

"M'not," Sirius mumbled, sulkily.

His younger brother, whose withering stare had not yet evolved beyond looking a bit like a stunned fish out of water, had mostly given up on him for the evening and had was currently chittering away to their Uncle Ignatius about what Quidditch positions would be available next year. Clearly, he would be trying out. Sirius had not, so it would just be another way the tiniest Black was obsessively showing him up.

(James had jumped on the Gryffindor chaser position, but Sirius liked to sleep in and not faff about in minus whatever weather at five in the morning because _he_ had common sense, thank you)

"I see the inevitable has happened," he heard from the side of him, before his Uncle Alphard sat down on the stairs with the creaking old man noise he was way too young to be making.

"Since I haven't touched a girl, I dunno how." He waited for a moment of silence, before realising his uncle was shaking his head. But with this family, you could be forgiven for thinking the inevitable meant reproducing before you'd gotten to OWL year.

He thought he'd get a scolding but Alphard didn't seem to put out. Nothing really put him out. It was one of his better qualities.

"No, this is thankfully a more temporary condition than parenthood." He said eventually.

"What," Sirius said, making it sound more of a statement than question.

"You've turned into a teenage boy," He said, seemingly amused by his supposedly terrible statement.

Sirius tried to glower harder. "So?"

"Belligerent, hormonal and looking quite ready to smack someone. Such a terrible affliction." His uncle said, swirling a glass of something that smelled like paint fumes. "You'll grow out of it."

"Mum didn't," Sirius replied, darkly.

"I don't believe your mother has ever been a teenage boy," Alphard said, giving one of his knees a knock in some misguided hope of making him lighten up.

Sirius was not in the mood to lighten up.

"Under your criterion," Sirius replied irritably, "I don't think Dad was either."

That did get him a look, but Alphard only remarked, "Your vocabulary continues to improve."

"I'm not stupid," Sirius said, indignantly. Just because he wasn't obsessive about his academics the way half the people around here seemed to be didn't mean he wasn't just as smart. He just preferred his dueling to researching when the last goblin rebellion was. "Just because I don't have a book permanently attached to me doesn't make me stupid."

"I know that."

"I already know what's in most of them anyway!"

"Do you now."

"And fiction's _boring_! It's just a lot more fun to have adventures than to read about some moron having them in a book."

"I quite agree."

Sirius scowled, but without much heat to it. "You're making it really hard to argue with you."

"Special talent of mine," Alphard winked.

Since he was still unable to set things on fire using just his mind no matter how hard he tried, Sirius simply rolled his eyes and slouched into the stairs harder.

"So what awful thing did you do to be banished to the stairs?" Alphard asked, apparently completely oblivious to Sirius' very intense attempts to be grumpy.

"Nothing," He mumbled.

His uncle seemed a little skeptical about it. "Is that a real nothing or a 'I put a hair removal potion in Bella's shampoo and would like to avoid her wrath' sort of nothing?"

"A real nothing," Sirius said, frowning. "Who would hair removal potion in someone's shampoo?"

"I imagine someone who would like said person to lose their hair," Alphard said. stating the bloody obvious. "I thought you may have been avoiding her."

"M'not," Sirius replied.

"All those lessons about proper pronunciation, one year at Hogwarts and you come back sounding like a drunk farm hand. Alright, if that's how you want to play it, then _why_ are you sitting to the sidelines?" Alphard made an expansive motion with his hand. "Have you decided to become shy? That would be awful."

"I don't want to hear it," Sirius replied, voice muffled by pressing his jaw into his chest with enthusiasm.

"It?"

"See, it was just a fluke, equilibrium has been restored, they'll be getting the owl from the Ministry any day now detailing how the entire future of the house of Black has been saved because he," Sirius gestured with a sharp nod to Regulus and ice cold tone, "Got _sorted right_."

Alphard regarded him curiously. "Do you believe you were sorted wrong?"

"Blacks go in Slytherin," Sirius spat with a bitter contempt for the words he'd heard all the previous damn year.

"Is it a bad fit for you, Gryffindor?"

"No," Sirius relented, thinking of his house-mates and his common room and his head of house and all of the fun he'd been having all last year. "I like it a lot. It's just that everyone's asking _him_ if he's enjoying his house, his common room, his room mates and all I heard all year was how terrible it was, how sorry they were for me, how awful it must be to be and they never want to hear anything different."

"It's unconventional. Can't say I'd have enjoyed it myself, a little too boisterous for me." Alphard admitted. "But Slytherin suits Regulus. He's having fun. You don't begrudge him that, surely."

Sirius shook his head, but kept up the glare. "He could be having less fun."

"No one expects you to be your younger brother." Alphard's voice became dire. "I don't think I'd want to be mine. I don't mind the girls so much, but Druella is and has always been simpering and I should rather take a very long walk off a very short cliff than have to share the home with her, let alone a bed."

Sirius couldn't help it; he smiled a little at that. His aunt was such a busybody and full of insincere flattery. Being about people like that made him crazy. People should just say what they mean. This is why he'd have been useless in Slytherin. They all shock too easily. He wouldn't be surprised if they required chaise loungers strategically placed for swooning if someone dared to suggest something muggle for the common room music.

"Aha, is that smile?"

Sirius ducked his head, so he didn't have to look at his uncle.

"Perhaps there's some hope for you yet."


	4. Aftermath of Andromeda leaving

They were barely through the door when Walburga exploded with such force that Sirius was sure he heard a few muttered complaints from the snoozing portraits in the hallway. He wasn't surprised; she'd been fuming all night and he was absolutely sure his father had given their apologies for leaving early simply because he knew she was going to end up screaming at him in front of everyone if they didn't leave immediately.

"WHAT IS _WRONG_ WITH YOU THAT YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF FOLLOWING SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS? HAS THE ALTITUDE OF THAT TOWER GONE TO YOUR BRAIN?"

"There's nothing wrong with me!" Sirius said, shoving his coat off and draping it over the table. Several portraits on it started squeaking beneath it, but he paid them no mind. "

YOU EMBARRASSED ME, THE ENTIRETY OF THIS ANCIENT AND NOBLE HOUSE-"

"I know you've put on a few pounds but I wouldn't call yourself house. Maybe a chalet." Sirius muttered under his breath. "

Sirius," his father interjected from up the hallway, where he was hanging up his own robes. He was a little surprised to hear a slight slur to his voice, but he supposed if anyone needed a drink tonight, they couldn't be blamed.

His mother was shaking her head, with her finger pressed to her temple from the distress. "One instruction. One! My poor brother and his wife having to endure the _indignity_ of it, the shame."

"I only asked what happened!" Sirius said, crossing his arms angrily.

"YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!" His mother yelled again. Sirius took a step back involuntarily, and almost crashed into his brother, who was clearly trying to become one with the wall. "YOU KNOW THE SHAME, THE BETRAYAL THAT HAS BEEN BROUGHT ON THIS HOUSE AND YOU DARE TO QUESTION IT?"

"If they're so upset about it, why'd they do it?" Sirius said, with a forced shrug. "You're the one who chose to burn her off."

"YOU WERE TOLD NOT TO BRING _HER_ UP!" Walburga reaffirmed. "YOU WERE TOLD! TO FORCE THEM TO SPEAK OF THEIR LOSS-"

"But they didn't lose anything!" Sirius insisted. "Andromeda got married so they tossed her away cause they didn't want her anymore."

Walburga moved forward and looped her and around his wrist, pulling him the short distance in front of her. " _Sirius Orion Black,_ " she said, like he didn't know his own name. Her voice vibrated in that way that meant trouble was probably brewing and he was going to end up stuck in his room again if this went on. "I never want to hear that name come out of your mouth _ever again_."

Sirius pointed looked away and set his jaw. There was no way he was going to show he was upset about this in front of _her_. "She's my cousin," he said, miserably.

"Sirius," his mother said, before raising her voice again. "Sirius, look at me when I'm talking to you."

"What," He said, sulkily.

Instead of the anticipated explosion, Walburga merely sighed. With her other hand, she beckoned over his (ever fucking obedient) brother who came immediately. "You both know the importance of blood that runs through you. It is precious and should be treated with care, as is befitting the House of Black. These are the things that make up this family, and there is nothing more important than the family. You both understand this?"

Even Sirius agreed with nodding into that one.

"By marrying that abomination, the girl has said she does not place value to this family. She does not deem you important enough to sway such a decision. She has betrayed this house, and you. There is no forgiveness that. She is not your cousin, she is a traitor and the house of Black does not suffer traitors."

There was a moment of silence, before she pressed her hand in a soothing motion over Regulus' shoulder. "Go to bed, both of you. We'll invite your aunt and uncle tomorrow, and you-" She looked to Sirius, who was struggling to figure out what to say to that. "You'll apologise for that disgusting display tonight, you were simply overwrought by such a terrible betrayal and will never speak of it again."


	5. A delirious look at Number 12

Sirius had been half asleep when he'd heard her.

"NOT IN THE DRAWING ROOM!"

Sirius groused, and stomped back up the stairs. Or rather, he attempted to stomp but it was probably a little more like just plain climbing. Speaking of climbing, he was starting to climb the bloody walls and if he ever found the person who _infected_ him, he was going to wring their necks. He ran his palm across his head, feeling the clamminess with a sense of irritation and parked himself on the stairs on the upper landing. He was going to get bollocked in a minute, but he'd been stuck in his room for almost two days and he only ever got confined there when he was being punished for something and he hadn't even done anything.

He was just sick.

It'd started the day after they got home from school. He attributed the lethargy to coming back to a snake pit after an adventure filled first term, but he'd began to feel increasingly hot and nauseous over the next day. He slept almost twelve hours and still felt exhausted when he'd dragged himself downstairs.

Finally, it had come to a head at breakfast the next morning when the bile at the dining room table had taken a literal turn and he'd heaved. Or so he'd thought. He was a little surprised when fire came out instead of fluid, bursting out laughing immediately after. He was _sick_. He never gets sick. But he had definitely been delirious, because Walburga Black was not a gentle person in general and never with him so she couldn't possibly press her hand to his forehead or speak quietly to him. She didn't know how to do anything other than scream at him anymore, usually to say how she wondered how he could possibly be hers or regret his very existence.

He'd batted her off, telling her he was fine but he'd still gotten banished to the bedroom and a healer called. He'd only set fire to one curtain while they were waiting! What an overreaction.

( " _Salamandastronitis_!" The healer had declared after mucking about. "Or colloquially, salamander flu. There's a few potions to alleviate the symptoms, but it'll leave his system on its own in a few days."

"I'm right here," He had groused. He despised being talked about when he should be talked to. He was fifteen now, for fuck sake.

"Get some rest, best thing for it." The healer had replied. "Fifth case this week, someone must have gotten on the train in the infectious stage." )

So this was how he was going to be brought down. By a fucking reptile illness. He was _bored_ , which was worse than being ill and now he was both ill and bored while people ran about preparing for a holiday party. It was the one salvation from all of this: he'd been formally excused from this torment and his brother was going instead.

Speaking of his perfect replacement.

"That cannot be comfortable." Sirius looked up from his place splayed across the stairs to the top landing and found himself feeling too tired to flip him off. Things had clearly gotten dire. He should draw up a will just in case.

"I was perfectly comfortable in the drawing the room before I was ousted," Sirius whined.

Regulus did that thing where he seems to size up you up and calculate a response. "Did you threaten to set fire to the tapestry?"

"I can't believe I'm dying and you'd accuse me of such a thing." Sirius replied. Well, maybe he had but he hadn't been exactly serious. No one understood his humour in this house. Besides, he was down to sputtering embers. It'd only give it a charred, battle scorn look anyway and make it a bit more interesting.

"You don't think that's a tad dramatic?" At least he sounded more amused than actually pissed off. You could never tell with his brother and heirlooms. Just look at Kreacher.

"No," Sirius said miserably.

"Go and read if you're bored," he suggested.

"Reading is boring," Sirius complained, despite the fact he was (secretly) an avid reader. Remus had been good about recommending him some things to read, but the words were blurring together at this point. He couldn't take it anymore. He'd thrown several of the books across the room with such force that he wouldn't be surprised if there was a dent in the wall.

When the same suggestion came only half an hour or so later (subjectively more like three hours), Sirius cracked open one eye and realised it was not Regulus but his father. He looked a lot less like he was the child puberty forgot than Regulus did, but sometimes, they could sound remarkably similar.

"I thought you were Regulus," He said, "But I don't think he could grow a mustache."

"He may one day," Orion looked around the landing, probably wondering how many things on it were flammable. "As might you, when you're older."

"I will not," Sirius insisted grumpily. "I have an excellent jawline and I refuse to obscure it behind a bunch of whiskers."

"As you like," his father allowed. It had to be a trick of the acoustics that he sounded more amused than annoyed. He couldn't remember the last time he'd known his father to be amused. Then again, maybe he was avoiding Druella Black, party planner irritating Walburga Black, renowned people hater and reluctant party thrower wandering about the second floor. That would cheer anyone up.

"Something should be," Sirius said, darkly. "Though if I turn out to be a cat, I guess I'd have to have whiskers. It'd look weird otherwise." He probably shouldn't have said that out loud. It was going to be a surprise for Remus. He wasn't supposed to tell people.

"I think you still have a temperature," his father told him. "Go back to bed."

Sirius agreed reluctantly that it was probably a better idea that lying on the stairs, what with so many people coming who might decide to try and push him down them and he couldn't even infect them anymore. Being ill was _balls_. He did retrieve a book before heading back to bed, though. Reading was awful, but it was better than nothing.

(He took it from Regulus' collection. He'd practically given permission for it, after all.)


	6. The aftermath of Regulus being de-masked

When the Order reconvened, Sirius was nowhere in sight.

Vaguely, he knew that he was so damn close to a firefight between the Order and the Death Eaters that he should have either gone back into the fray or apparated back to the meeting point. He did neither. He simply walked, as if he could just walk off the rising bile in his throat, the anger slowly burning a hole in his chest, hot lids of his eyes threatening to do something utterly humiliating and that dazed confusion that any of it could have really happened.

Regulus Black was a Death Eater.

It didn't fit, like forcing a shape into a hole that wasn't designed for it but with enough shoving, it would go through. He had little doubt of who did the shoving. The anger burned through his extremities despite the cold as he thought of his parents, his cousins, people who would each take and take and take because they felt it was their right to dictate how someone should live their life. He'd bared the brunt of it well enough, but he could hex with the best of them and had been able to throw a punch without breaking his hand since he was fourteen. Regulus was barely an adult and he always buckled under pressure. It was his nature to try to please others without actually thinking for himself. And without a buffer...

" _Idiot_ ," Sirius hissed to himself, stomping his way towards the nearest lights of civilization. "Stupid, stupid, _stupid_..."

He kicked one of the wood pieces ferociously, and lost his grip on the snow. He up-ended himself, landing arse first on the snow with a grunt and a hiss. He has to laugh at himself. This was his life right now, sitting in the snow after seeing his little brother in the grips of Voldemort's following voluntarily and not having had the decency to make sure he paid for it. He was going to literally freeze his bollocks off and it was all his stupid little brothers fault, and his fault for letting him and his parents fault for generally existing.

He needed to go home.

He imagined, with a churn of his stomach, that even baby Death Eaters were back in their warm beds by now.

"Where the hell have you been?"

Of all of the things Sirius imagined when he went trudging back to his flat, having Marlene McKinnon open the door and wag her arms around at him like she was going to punch him was not even near the top of the list.

"Why the hell are you here?" Sirius grumbled. He was cold, wet, covered in patches of still icy snow and tree bark. He'd wanted to come in, strip into a shower, drink a bottle of cheap whisky and go to bed hoping tomorrow would be better. Notice that not on this list was Marlene McKinnon.

Nor Lily Evans, who poked her head around the door like a red haired gnome startling out of the ground. "There you are."

"Yes, I'm here, you're here, why the fuck are you here?"

They didn't tend to gather much at his and Remus' flat. Usually, when they did, it was at the Potter-Evans abode since it was larger and usually tidier.

Evans, in her usual manner, ignored his tone completely. "Are you hurt?"

"No." She gave him a look, so he did a star jump which was utterly ruined by wincing. "Cuts and bruises, Evans. No need to go preparing funeral wreaths just yet."

Suddenly, he felt a smack up the back of his head because Marlene McKinnon cannot be trusted with her own limbs. "We went into Death Eater infested waters and you disappear!" She told him, hotly. "People are doing their nut! James has already gone out to see if you went round his Mum's."

"Oh." Sirius hadn't thought about that. He'd been too busy thinking of bone-white masks in the snow muddled with building snowmen. He'd been too busy thinking that he needed to put as much distance between his brother and himself as possible. He'd been thinking he needed _a fucking drink_.

None of what he'd been thinking involved remembering people might worry if he disappeared during a raid on Death Eaters.

Despite how much he wanted to get out these clothes, to wrap himself up in something warm and forget the war for a night, he pulled his head out of his ass and turned to go again.

"Sirius!" Evans said, managing to convey her question in only that.

"I'm going to get your errant boyfriend!"

He didn't think he had the head for a flat full of people right now. Merlin knows what he might say.

There was always something about coming to Godric's Hollow, even as it was struggling to put itself back together after the attacks the previous year that had left it scarred. It was akin to what he imagined coming home was supposed to feel like, the promise of something comforting, warm and not at all like the complex rolling emotions that he tended to associate with his own childhood house.

(He didn't want to stop and think about 12 Grimmauld Place, nor it's residents, at the moment.)

"You've missed him," Mrs Potter said, as he walked through the door. He'd always been welcome there, they'd promised and they certainly seemed to mean it enough that he was often told to stop knocking. "He's gone down into the town, but he'll be back before he leaves, I expect."

"Why?"

She gestured to the kitchen table, draped with James' coat where it had obviously been subject to some drying charms. He guessed James had been in a bit of a scuffle too, a thought which compounded his already guilty conscience. What if something had happened to him?

"I think he forgets he doesn't live here." Mrs Potter said, "Give me yours as well, you look half frozen."

Sure enough, by the time Sirius had been de-jacketed, given a strong cup of tea and listened mindlessly about how Mr Sodbury at Old Rose Cottage most certainly did not deserve to have his rose bushes trampled by stampeding Aurors trying to check on some tip that had turned out to be false, James flopped in.

"Mum, I can't find-"

Sirius was suddenly glad not to have a cup in his hand, because he went flying off the kitchen chair onto the stone floor by a sopping, very excitable James who appeared to be wearing nothing but a truly ridiculous looking reindeer jumper. He swore loudly as he went on his arse for the third time this evening, and apologised on reflex even as he laughed a little.

"You _utter pillock_ , you can't just disappear like that!" James pulled himself up, running his hand over his hair so the snow dropped onto the kitchen. He was reminded vaguely of a human whomping willow.

"I got side tracked," Sirius said, pulling himself up.

"You can't just get side tracked when we're-" James seemed to notice his mother in the room, "Picking out trees."

"You don't have a tree yet?" Mrs Potter looked quite alarmed, thrusting another hot cup into James' hands.

Sirius hoped his glare at his best mate communicated the _thanks for that_ in all it's sarcastic glory.

"No, they do, it's just a placky one and I figured we should get a proper one," James said rapidly.

Sirius had the strongest suspicion she wasn't buying any of it. Mrs Potter was many things, but oblivious was not one of them. She didn't call them on it, though. Sirius had never been more grateful for her.

It was a quick fire call to the flat and a promise to James' mum to wait until they'd warmed up that led both of them to James' room. Often treated as his own, due to his own habit of rarely making it to bed so much as sleeping when he couldn't do anything else, it too had a lot of warm memories that half-helped and half-hurt in his current state of mind. He was struck by the sudden desire to grab James' quilt and go lie down immediately, but the second he did, there'd be more questions than he could answer.

"You scared the shit outta me," James said, flopping on the bed with enough force that the reindeer on his jumpers nose lit up. "I looked all over the meeting, then no one had seen you come back, so I thought you'd gotten hurt and if you hadn't gone home, maybe you'd come here."

"Then you went about like a wintery Kate Bush calling me about town," Sirius finished, giving an extremely forceful shrug and hoping James would get the hint and change the subject.

As usual, he didn't get the hint. "Where were you?"

"Needed a walk," Sirius replied.

"In the middle of the night, in fucking freezing weather and right after we storm the Death Eaters."

Sirius wouldn't have believed it either. It was just that he didn't really know what to say. He just shrugged again and wondered if he just went to sleep, if he'd be left alone. Maybe wake up with a few dicks drawn over his face, but that was nothing unusual. Peter had spent half a week in his last year scrubbing furiously after he'd passed out around them.

"Are you being a prick on purpose or did something happen?" James asked.

"I'm multitasking," Sirius replied. James leaned up on his elbows, squinting at him from behind his glasses. "Did you - take one out?"

( _"Cast again, and you're dead."_ )

It was something they'd talked about as a possibility, but none of them had experienced first hand. While no one knew if a blasting curse or the wrong severing charm hit someone in the right place to take them out, it was always going to be a possibility and not one either of them really relished. For all the big game they tended to talk, sometimes it all seemed a little too big for them.

( _"I can blow your head off and go back and help my friends or you can lose the mask."_ )

He shook his head violently, both in answer and try and chase away the image of pieces of his younger brother scattered over bloody snow. That was going to make an interesting addition to the usual nightmares. He wanted to kill him for being so stupid, of course he did, but not if it meant he'd actually be dead. The thought just made him feel number than the damned cold had. He should have marched the little king back to his fucking castle and (their - _his_ ) parents and demanded to know what the hell they were thinking, letting their ( _only_ ) son run around with mass murderers and sadists. He'd get himself killed, and then where would their precious house be? Even if they couldn't muster a genuine note of affection for their offspring and his continued ability to breathe, surely they'd want that. They had always been indomitable before; where the fuck was that when he needed it?

Fuck them. They didn't care about either of them and Regulus, as always, was just too damn soft to see it.

For all that James had the inability to take a hint, he at least knew when some things couldn't be dealt with sober. Whatever had come across his face in those moments, James had clearly come to the conclusion that Sirius had much earlier in the night that alcohol was going to be tonight's solution to tomorrow's problems, tonight's problems and everything else. At least for a while.

It after a few drinks, enough cigarettes Mrs. Potter would be miffed and warmer bones that Sirius said it.

"I'm going to kill my brother."

It's not so much that he decided to say it so much that it had been brimming up over the hours, both a statement of something he feared he may do by accident and a visceral feeling of malcontent about the state of his brothers choices. He was supposed to be the smart one, damn him. Keep his head down, get through it all and if he ever managed to show interest in a girl, maybe have some kids. He wasn't supposed to go around killing people.

"Which one?"

Sirius shoved him; an old joke and not one that applied at this exact moment. If there was one thing in this world he was sure of, it was that James Potter could not and would not ever be a Death Eater. His girlfriend, mother and just about everyone else would rip his bollocks off for it and he was very fond of bollocks and their supposed enormity.

James just cackled, because he's a jerk. "So what's he done this time?"

Sirius knocked back the whole glass, before coughing and sputtering for a moment. The fact James wasn't mocking him for it probably meant he already knew, from the context of the night if nothing else, why he was in the mood to string his little brother up. "Joined the Death Eaters," he managed to spit out.

There was a silence that Sirius fucking _hated_. James was never quiet, it was one of the best and worst things about him that he just forever ran his mouth. He took another drink, suddenly feeling cold again despite the alcohol burning through him.

Eventually, when James did speak, it was with an agonizingly careful tone. "You saw him?"

Slowly, Sirius nodded. He didn't trust himself to say anything else about it in that moment. He was too ( _hurt, angry, pissed off, scared_ ) wound up to say anything that wasn't going to come back and bite him on the back side.

"Did you tell Dumbledore?"

Though still not looking at him, Sirius slowly shook his head.

"Are you going to?"

"I don't know."

James poured another drink with an unsteady hand. "Do you want me to?"

"No!" They were both a little surprised by the ferocity of the statement. He didn't really shout at James a lot, not seriously, not in a way that mattered and he usually understood that. But Regulus had long been sore spot between them. He followed it lamely with, "I don't know."

"Do you think he was before you left?"

If someone else had asked him that, Sirius would have punched them already. James, as it stood, just got glared at. He didn't want to know. He didn't want to think about it. At the same time, he had to think about it and he had to know.

"What do you want to do here, Sirius?" James said, like it was an easy thing to decide.

The one upside of walking away two years ago was knowing life would go on as it ever had in the ancestral home. Nothing would change. Now everything had changed, and he was angry with himself for not anticipating that, for not calling out his cousin when he had the chance, for not getting it through his parents thick skulls that the Death Eaters would be the end of their world as much as his own, for not just grabbing his fucking idiot of a brother and taking him whether he liked it or not because at least then he'd survive it.

Sirius realised with a jolt that this was what he was trying to figure out; a way for him to survive it.

And he couldn't.

He didn't know for sure that he had survived anyway. The image of the two people, the one in his mind and the one he saw tonight, were incompatible. But either way, it was coming to terms with the fact that one way or another, this was likely about to kill him. If he didn't do what he was supposed to (and there was a part of him desperately wishing he wouldn't), they would likely kill him for the disobedience. He hadn't been really even trying to hurt him, he'd been using spells designed only to slow him or stop him, and that...was troubling in a whole other way. If he did do it, he might lose his soul in the process and that could be even worse. You could still see vestiges of the person beneath but the person wasn't there anymore, blasted away by dark magic. The thought frightened him more than he wanted to admit. Then there was the Aurors, where he could _literally_ lose his soul or spend what would undoubtedly be a short rest of his life in Azkaban. His stomach lurched. Those were both options for the Order too, or perhaps he would have spoken to Dumbledore already.

Damn it, he hated everyone today. He hated Regulus for being stupid enough to join the Death Eaters, he hated their parents for not putting a stop to this nonsense before it started, he hated Bellatrix for parading herself as the hero of pureblood mania, he hated James for asking the question, Marlene and Lily for not leaving him the hell alone tonight and he hated himself for not having an answer.

"I hate him," Sirius said, miserably. "It's like he's making me choose how he dies just so I get to feel shitty about it."

"This isn't your fault," James reminded him, loyally.

(Wrongly.)

"I left him there," Sirius protested, mildly. He took another drink down, the churn of his stomach reminding him it'd been about twelve hours since he'd eaten so he was pretty secure in the knowledge he'd puke soon and if need be, he could blame anything else humiliating to follow it on that. "I knew what Bellatrix was. I knew he had the backbone of a flobberworm and that he thinks if he does everything they say, is everything everyone expects him to be then just maybe they might give a shit about him."

"He wouldn't have gone with you," James said, like that mattered.

Sirius shook his head. "Now he's just picking his poison."

"He chose to join the Death Eaters," James reminded him. He wanted to tell the Order, or at least, Dumbledore. Sirius was sure he did. He also knew if he asked him not to, he'd carry the knowledge to the grave.

"He doesn't know the meaning of the word," Sirius scoffed. The little parrot, the puppet, the doll - all terms he'd been using for Regulus for years. It just looked like there was a brand new group of assholes to pull his strings now."He's just trying to be everything I'm not."

"Joining the Death Eaters is a good start," James said, smiling grimly. "It's something you'd never do."

"It's different," Sirius said, eyes flicking to his best friend. "He doesn't have you. He doesn't even have pale imitation of you, or Remus or Peter or your Mum or Evans. He just has people who want something from him and he's too shit scared of losing it all to do anything but bend over."

"And other people should be hurt because of that?" James asked. "Should die because you had shitty parents? You're here."

"I was lucky," Sirius tried to smile, but it was a grotesque thing. "I figured it out early that no matter what I did, I wasn't good enough and refused to beg for it. He's still trying."

"It doesn't excuse it," James said, quietly.

"No, it doesn't." Sirius agreed. "But I still don't want him to die for it. I don't care that he might deserve it-" he held up a hand, when he saw James about to speak. "Not because he's pureblood or some shit like that, I don't need a muggles-are-people reminder but - I don't think he does either. I think he knows it's all bullshit, or at least mostly bullshit, but it's bullshit they might love him for and fuck knows, he hasn't got anyone else to do that."

There was another silence, before James stumbled to his feet and almost knocked over his glass in the process. Sirius stared at him for a moment, putting on a too-small coat over his giant Christmas jumper and waving his hands at him like Sirius was the one who'd just gone mental.

"Come on, then."

Sirius pulled himself up onto his knees, proud of the fact he didn't sway as much. At least, he thinks he didn't. "Where we going?" He asked. They couldn't apparate like this.

"Grimmauld Place."

 _What?_

"Look, you said yourself, it's just some shitty indoctoratation and he's a decent bloke under it, just too shit-scared to do anything about it, right?" James said, tripping over his words enough that Sirius was pretty sure he'd splinch himself trying to apparate downstairs, let alone to London.

Slowly, Sirius nodded.

"So he needs help saying fuck it, go get him!" James made the shooing motion again, like he was the fucking cat.

"You want to break into Grimmauld Place, getting into the shit with my parents and drag him out?" Sirius was both amazed at the stupidity and touched at the sentiment. "He won't go and my dear old mum will kill both of us and feed us to Lestrange's dogs."

"You said-" James stopped, looking through his pockets for something. "You said if anyone could breach the wards at Grimmauld Place, it's you! So let's breach it, fuck it, I'm not scared of your mum, my mum could take your mum, drag the little prick out and just, that'd be that."

"And what do you do with a tiny Death Eater for the rest of the war?" Sirius asked, wobbling back onto his feet if only to grab his best mate from trying to apparate in his condition.

I dunno, he could stay here!" James suddenly declared, like it was the best idea he'd ever had. "Mum likes fussing over people and he's tiny, he looks like he's going to keel over like one of them Victorian ladies when someone swears so he wouldn't be a problem, you could just put him somewhere and it'd be fine, it'd be _fine_. He couldn't hurt anyone and no one would look here because he's kind of a prick and not in a good way so why would he be here, it'd be sneaky and it'd work. "

Sirius couldn't help but laugh at him. Even in his own fuzzy brain, he knew it wouldn't work. Part of it was that Regulus would always go back. He wanted them desperately to care enough to bring him back, even if he was a legal adult and he wouldn't understand he was being used. Besides, what would be the point of taking him out of one cage and exchanging for another? It would make him no better than them.

"You're drunk," Sirius told him lightly.

"Why aren't you?" James sounded so put out by this affront.

"I'm not a lightweight," Sirius said, putting his arm around his shoulders. "What are you looking for?"

"My wand!" James did the most animated pout he'd seen. "

It's in your jacket downstairs," Sirius said, dragging him towards the stairs.

"I don't want mum to see me drunk," James said, putting a finger to his mouth.

Sirius shook his head, giving his shoulders a tight squeeze. "I'll get it. Go to sleep. No apparating to get into fights with my parents."

James was still muttering about how he thought he could take them when Sirius returned a few minutes later. He left his wand on the side table, and finished the bottle: no sense letting good shit go to waste just because it took James three drinks to get off his head.


End file.
